


Margins

by bendy_quill



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Smidge Of Angst, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, idk - Freeform, roasting Varric because he's an awful writer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-09 08:40:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17998583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendy_quill/pseuds/bendy_quill
Summary: Would you believe there are nights where Thom Rainier reads to the woman he loves?





	Margins

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr has become a hellscape for writers all of a sudden, so I'm posting this bit here so that people can actually read it without getting a headache. But anyway, Blackwall should read more books to his beloved. I feel like he’d be very into that.
> 
> Some Helena x Blackwall, pure fluff, maybe just a smidgen of angst, a decent smattering of roasting Varric for his shit writing skills.
> 
> For whatever reason, "Work Song" fit real well with the tone of this piece.

A bit of rubbish and some wish fulfillment. Maybe now the others have finally figured out her love of the little romantic intrigues because he used to get so frustrated about the way they’d eye her from across camp. Simple pleasures is where he learns to find some form of joy, her nose buried in a novel and legs crossed all primly, pale eyes quickly skimming through the page so she can get to the good parts.

She put away about four or five of novels on the roads, half a book at camp and then the rest of it on the ride to the nearest town. He’d known her favorite genre by the time the third or fourth week passed in Haven–knights and princesses, noble courtships, a few odd ones about werewolves and blood-sucking creatures, the occasional historical retelling or word of mouth recounting of some of the most famous stories in all southern Thedas. There was that time he found one of Varric’s lesser known romance serials in her things. 

She vehemently denied ownership.

He never believed that, but he wasn’t going to push. 

“Retirement,” or so they’ve decided to call it for now, treats her better than all the time she spent risking life and limb for the Inquisition. Bloody Solas, the bastard. If he ever would be so lucky to run into that man again…

“Thom?” 

It still sounds strange rolling off the tongue these days–Thom shakes his head and glances up at her. She’s the picture of comfort, all tucked into their bed, silk scarf secured firmly around her head, and quill in her hand. The cool metal arm flickers every so often, lyrium carefully circulating through the limb. Her glasses rest on the tip of her nose, gold rimmed and reflecting the warm crackle of fire burning in the hearth across the room. “What’s wrong?”

He cracks a small smile and glances at the book in his hand. 

“Thinking is all,” he answers quietly. “Knighthood and chivalry–where’d that passion come from?”

Helena shrugs, expression softening. 

“It had more to do with the romance than the concept.” She turns back to the missive on her pad, quill gliding across the parchment in sure and gentle scratches. “I don’t think I ever entertained the idea of being a lady in the ways my cousins were–the ones on my father’s side, I mean. My grandmother died well before I knew her and my mother might’ve been a mage. I had very little clout and, as such, even less help when it came to establishing my legitimacy as a future heiress.”

He scowls. “It’s a cruel fate to ascribe to a child.”

“It’s why stories mattered so much to me _.”_ She pouts, raising her knees up. “I was young when my mother passed but she left me with so many stories. I could put down the humiliation and the hatred of the Treveylans so long as I could find one that held me. It was the same in the Circle, moving from one gilded cage to the next. They could have the body but my mind belonged to me.” Helena pauses, the feather of the quill bobbing as she taps the implement with her finger. “And then I found out about First Enchanter Vivienne–well, _Imperial Courtier_  Vivienne. A _mage_? With a lover in the _Imperial Court_? I was so glad to hear her talk of Bastien–to know his feelings for her and that…that some of those stories came true.”

“Finding love? Being courted?” he asks.

“When you grow up shunned by your family, considered undesirable by the masses, and convinced that any romantic relationship you could have might very well end with your partner being shipped off to some other Circle halfway across the world at a moment’s notice, you make do with what you can get.” A heavy silence falls between them, the cracking fire and diligent scratching of her quill filling the void long enough that she doesn’t notice. Not at first, but it’s a gradual realization. Her brows furrow and she looks up at him. He has no doubt that the face he’s making looks mildly upset. “I meant to say that in a more lighthearted tone.”

Thom casts his eyes back to the book in his hand, dog-eared corners still folded along their creases. Little splotches of ink stain the margins in places, the blackened tip of his thumb still spreading a bit of wet ink in the pristine spaces. He draws the book up again, eyes skimming the pages.

“ _…and it was in the very same smile that Rosalie knew her time would come close to the end_ ,” he continues. “ _Like dancing through the fields on a crisp morning, the frigid dew still clinging to the grass, husks of great witherstalks nearly eight feet tall rustling in the winter breeze.”_

Helena guffaws. “Like he’d ever know what _that_  feels like!”

“ _Her lips, firm and a little cracked, parted as if the words in her heart threatened to overtake the more sensible parts of her. She knew it would be a horrible risk, to bear all these feelings that have welled up deep inside of her. To speak on things they both knew could simply not be between them._

_Her mouth opened and her hands bunched her skirts in tight fists. It would take so little to undo it all, to unbury that which had been put to rest near a decade prior._

_She should keep her confession as she has kept her love all this time–Rosalie would make a mistake if she admitted the truth…”_

Helena resumes her work on her missive and lets out a deep snort. 

“She’s not gonna do it,” Helena says in a singsong voice. 

“You spoiling the plot?” Thom asks incredulously. “You couldn’t have possibly–I saw you buy the thing and not touch it until I started reading it! How–”

“It’s a romantic novel penned by _Varric Tethras_ , love. He never lets his books end happily.” She stops writing long enough to gesture with her quill. “Blah blah, forbidden love affair, blah blah blah, someone is confronted with the chance to confess. He likes to take real things that have definitely happened, dress up the circumstances here, bullshit his way there– _bam_! There’s a manuscript and at least a tiny thread of surreal storytelling because it’s the world’s most incredible game of two truths and a _ton of lies_.”

“And that makes you think Rosalie won’t confess?”

She nods vigorously. “I’ve got him all figured out–no confession, Rosalie will probably die before Annalise ever figures it out.”

Thom frowns. “That’s bleak, love. Especially for you.”

“That’s _Varric,”_ she says. “You know how he is about feelings and whatnot. He could barely talk about his feelings when Hawke got married.”

“Well, I think Rosalie is going to confess,” he counters. Helena glances up at him, peering just over the rim of her glasses, and raises a brow at his defiance. “She’ll confess and things will be happy from here on out.”

He sits up, eyes squinting and focusing back on the pages. For a long while, silence hangs in the air between them. Her eyes bore holes into his skull as she waits. Thom skims and skims quietly for a long few minutes.

“ _Her mouth dries and her body seizes up, not a muscle twitching even involuntarily. Brown eyes peer into the depths of her own muted green orbs, a tentative hand reaching out._

_‘Rosie?’ Sweet Annalise calls. Rosalie jerks, dodging away from Anna’s grasp. Afraid, too much afraid._

_‘Anna, listen,’ Rose stammers. ‘You can’t marry Valjean. You have to tell them you can’t do it!’  
_

_Anna shakes her head, brow furrowing. ‘We both know I can’t do that. My father would have my head if I even thought about stepping out of the marriage.’_

_‘Then make something up!’ Rose hisses, shaking with the effort. She grasps Anna’s shoulders–no no no–a mistake. Warm skin beneath her fingertips–a terrible mistake. That night comes flooding back to her, the quiet and the old creaking wood under them.”_

His eyes briefly dart up towards Helena, her face is rapt and her body leans completely forward. 

“ _She couldn’t do it, couldn’t take this anymore. It’s not fair, she thinks and shakes her head._

_‘I said if the sky opened and the world threatened to swallow you, I’d fight the gods for you life and take your place without hesitation,’ Rose says, the very weight of her oath settling heavy on her heart. Anna gasps, jerking but moving no further as Rose’s grip on her tightens and her head lifts, eyes meeting halfway. ‘If the gods wouldn’t let you be, then I’d make them. I’d make them because you deserve more than a worth bound by titles, and wealth, and babies born with airs. You deserve devotion, and passion. Loyalty…’_

_Pure unadulterated want. Desire. Gentleness. Truth._

_Every word she remembers, recites to a rapt audience of a chilly winter air, the eight foot stalks of wither, and the woman she loves.”_

He looks up at Helena again, holds her gaze for another long set of minutes and his thoughts swim. He remembers the moment he knew he would lose her–not upon the gallows where his confession rang out for all of Val Royeaux to hear, but rather the night they first laid together. 

He thought she would be soft under all those clothes, all squishy and pampered like the ladies that he was used to seeing before all this Inquisition business. She was everything–criss-crossed scars and pock marks where projectiles lodged in her skin, faded scars and fresh ones spread within mere inches of each other, little freckles and dark moles here or there. He remembers the moons that night, shining bright in the open window and bathing her brown skin in pale blue light. 

She was soft in his arms that night, gently rocked in his arms. Protected. _Safe_.

And he broke her heart the very next day. 

He would lose her but he would’ve held onto the memory as he swung–that was the plan. Then she had to come demanding his release. 

The shit he’s put her through–he may well be no better than the family that used her in those two years before the Inquisition disbanded. 

She tilts her head, leaning her chin on a propped up hand resting on her knee. 

“Keep going, love?” she asks and he has to suck in a breath. 

“ _It’s a certain level of madness that sweeps through her the more of the oath that comes out. Every word stirring a buzzing fervor within her, reminding her of what can never be but became despite all that. Nothing would hold her, nothing can stop her anymore._

_‘From the first moment I saw you, I knew I’d love you every day of my life,’ Rose says, voice quiet yet still certain. A violent wind rips a stalk from the ground, Anna’s eyes go wide and her body stills. ‘I knew I’d love no one else. Would be owed no future where I could imagine loving another nearly as much. My life was changed then, Anna. My life would never be the same and I relished the idea for so long…as long as I could be with you.’”  
_

Helena hums, eyes briefly closing. “Love can change a person.”

“’ _I think things I shouldn’t. Daydreams about me being the one that offers my arm, shows you off to my family and all the proud socialites of Winthrop Stead. It makes me think I can be better, different. Maybe even a whole new person compared to the…the person I once was.’”_

To the horror, the abomination, the absolute savage lost to pride and committed to a path of deception. To make right the wrongs that had been done, a path of redemption that would probably be less deserved. 

But it was the path chosen, the road walked. And in the middle of it all, maybe there wasn’t any hope that life would be tending to plump chickens, feeding fat goats, and keeping house with a woman worth more than the sorry soul she found solace in. 

“ _Maybe she didn’t deserve this. Maybe this dilemma was a punishment of the divines–a love that could not be but would flourish regardless. She was Rose, a sinner turned sanctimonious, and her lover was Annalise, a woman greater than the world would ever deserve to know._

_A woman of compassion and great intelligence, whose very heart she could almost hear pounding in the dead of night._

_Felt enough times at her ear, the only witness to their love the quiet all around them, the dirt, and each other. It’s all they needed. All they ever wanted.”_

_“_ Each other,” Helena says, a small smile playing at her lips. His heart thrums in his chest. 

Maybe none of this is deserved–but dammit, he’ll take it and run far and fast with it. 

Chickens, fat goats, and all.

“’ _I love you, Annalise. Every part of my broken heart, my beaten body. I have loved you since we were young and I have loved you all throughout these years._

_I shouldn’t ask this of you, shouldn’t burden you further with this. But I love you and I need you to know that. To know that I’d die with your memories in my head and your warmth having brought faith–life, even–back to my weary soul.”_

There’s a serene look about her face, eyes shut and smile firmly in place. Her body rocks slowly, a laugh bubbles in her throat. He’d throw the book down if only he wasn’t determined to see her response. 

“It’s so horribly tragic,” she says, eyes gently opening. She smirks. “And very _unlike_  Varric.”

Thom clears his throat. “That obvious?”

“You haven’t turned the page once.”

He glances down at the book and flips a page. 

She laughs and rises from her spot on the bed, nightgown sweeping past her feet as she pads across the floor. Her arms wind around his neck and he’s done. Melting into her touch takes little time, even less effort. His face nuzzles into her warmth just above her breasts, subtle perfume flooding his nose and a bit of a minty edge clinging to her skin–

Medicine. She can’t be “Inquisitor” anymore, but she’s just as good when she’s “Helena.”

Just as good whipping up poultices and cures for the people down in the village. 

Just as good when she’s sitting under a tree, six books cracked open and her quill furiously scratching notes in her journal. 

Just as good pressing up against him firmly seated in his lap, soft lips lavishing kisses on his forehead. 

“I think loving you was one of the better things to happen to me in all my life,” he murmurs, voice partially muffled by the fabric of her gown. “I was lonely for so long. Wanted something, anything, other than that awful silence. But, I knew I didn’t deserve any of it. _None of this_.”

“Maybe,” she says, brushing his hair out of his face. “But it didn’t stop me from giving it, from you coming for it when I offered.”

He remembers. A little push here, an extended hand there. She never had to say much, if anything at all. 

 _He_ came to _her_. All she did was offer a promise and he took that chance.

“You deserved a better man than what I was,” he admits, pulling back to look at her. 

There’s a small spark of something in her eyes–a bit of defiance and a lot of love. It’s what convinced him then that he could have this, have her and know that it was all right. That she’d look at him and see a future, maybe. That he’d look at her and know he could make one with her even committed to the path he chooses to walk. 

“I got what I wanted in the end,” she says, kissing him softly. “There was always the one thing I knew was true, regardless of how much you tried to hide it. You cared deeply. Felt so strongly deep within you heart.” She closes her eyes and leans her forehead against his. “Maybe you deserved to have something too.”

Maybe. 

 _Maybe_.


End file.
